What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
The short story "Why I Live at the P.O." by Eudora Welty. I'd read the story and performed several characters from it in reader's theatre productions. I loved the story but had never heard the voice of Eudora Welty. On May 14, 1978, I [...]

Junot Diaz gave a wonderful reading at the Pratt library, as part of the City Lit Festival, on Saturday. For 60 minutes in a packed Wheeler Auditorium, he was tender and bold, candid and cool, elegant and earthy, reading excerpts from the story "Homecoming, With Turtle" and fielding questions from the audience. Hats off to [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
Poison River, a graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez, gave me a master lesson in real writing. It was beautiful beyond words and violent and tender and heartbreaking. From that moment on, I knew what kind of writer I wanted to be. It's the [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
That's simple—Black Beauty by Anna Sewell made me concerned with animal rights, and I became dedicated to this cause.
Legendary pianist Leon Fleisher conducts the Peabody Symphony Orchestra on August 16th at Friedberg Hall. The program will also feature the winner of last year's [...]

Millard Kaufman, who created the Mister Magoo cartoon character, passed away a few days ago. Kaufman, who grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Hopkins, also wrote the screenplay for Bad Day at Black Rock, which earned him an Oscar nomination in 1955. McSweeney's published Kaufman's debut novel, Bowl of Cherries, in 2007. At the [...]

Reporting on the upcoming Bob Dylan CD, Together Through Life, the folks at Pitchfork are speculating that the cover is "sure-to-be-scrutinized." Well, no kidding. When considering any Dylan release, that's the one thing you can be certain of—it will be scrutinized. And not just the cover, also the title, lyrics, song titles, choice of musicians, [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
Not one work of art, but several, and all by the same author, Dostoevsky. The Idiot and Poor Folk, Crime and Punishment, The Eternal Husband, The Possessed, and several short stories. When I was in my late teens. this was art, I felt, [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?

Shakespeare's play King Lear, which I saw for the first time at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. in 1968. It made me understand for the first time the real tragedy of human mortality, the paradox of time, and the power of poetry to [...]

James McBride's excellent novel, Song Yet Sung, has been chosen for this year's One Maryland One Book program, which was developed to help spark constructive discussions of social issues across the state. Set on the Eastern Shore, McBride's book revolves around runaway slaves in Dorchester County and deals with race issues that affect all Marylanders. [...]

What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
Some experiences of great art are electric, dramatic. I'm thinking of the effect on the viewer, or reader, of  Van Gogh's swirling, cosmically charged "Starry Night" or Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Terrible Sonnets."
But some art is more quietly life-changing.  My husband brought back some small [...]